Brayden Myers: AI Bots Expose Democracy’s Hidden Fragility

In a haunting experiment, AI chatbots on a bare-bones social network—free of algorithmic manipulation—still devolved into polarized echo chambers, proving that division may be baked into social systems, not driven by technology alone. Even without ads, recommendations, or trending feeds, bots gravitated toward ideological homogeneity, elevating extremist voices and empowering a few dominant influencers. Brayden Myers, a Young Voices contributor and economics student at the University of Alabama, offers a nonpartisan perspective on how this finding parallels the failures of modern democracy—where validation eclipses truth, and unchecked consensus threatens freedom. He joins WRFH to discuss.